Balsamic Moon Death Meditation

An Invitation

Last month- in the hours before the new moon constituting the Balsamic Phase, wherein the moon grasps the last tendrils of the sun’s light before surrendering and renewing herself in total darkness- I held a death meditation, with the intention of bringing participants into active relationship with the concept of facing their own death. This was a response to a call I have felt over the course of my life (one that has grown more difficult to ignore than ever in the last year and a half) to work in some capacity with death, dying, and grief; to make a true commitment to disrupting and challenging western cultural attitudes toward these processes in whatever way I can, starting with myself and my immediate community. I know I am not the first and I won’t be the last to feel crushed by capitalism’s commitment to an anti-symbiotic attitude toward death, in which our system actively kills while lending absolutely no credence to the sacredness of the emotional experience of grief, rituals of mourning and ongoing bereavement, or the moment of death itself. This is not new, and yet, it is more evident than ever: we are actively watching as the US Empire crawls on its hands and knees toward slow infernal demise, all the while chanting hollow, delusional proclamations of its own immortality. It is my firmly held belief that this very same clinging to immortality is the rot which is most singularly central to the heart of a culture of capitalism and white supremacy, a culture which normalizes genocide and relies on slave labor to sustain itself; a culture which has no regard for life because not only does it not understand death, but fears it, encountering it only as a punishment that happens to those not strong enough or resourced enough to survive as opposed to something universally and collectively shared and thus deserving of deep reverence.

When we willfully separate ourselves from an understanding of our own impermanence- the very same impermanence that nature teaches us in all of its beauty, decay, and rebirth- we become hollow, plastic, disconnected objects as opposed to existing as the complex and ensouled organisms that we are. You are not plastic, and neither am I. You are not separate from nature, and neither am I. You do not exist in this body outside of the context of time, and neither will I. You will not live forever, and neither will I.

By fully immersing ourselves in the fallibility of the body, worshipping at the altar of our own mortality, and refusing to buy into the paradoxical, consumptive culture of planned obsolescence into which we are indoctrinated from birth under capitalism, we may begin to disentangle ourselves from the tight bondage of tunnel-visioned hubris which has led to so much despicable colonial violence, acceleration of planetary destruction, and unsympathetic individualism. I firmly believe that death gives context to our lives, importance to our relationships, and weight to our actions- and death itself is proof that every single human being on this earth is much greater than the body that their soul inhabits. I feel strongly that it is through facing death without fear that we can create a more just world.

During the moon’s last light (the balsamic phase, or “Dark Moon”), as she catches up with the sun right before becoming new again, luna releases her body and surrenders into quiet darkness. It is through this period of rest and regeneration that she may get the nourishment she needs to continue her journey. According to Demetra George, “we travel through a dark moon (phase) whenever we experience a personal loss and pass through a period of disruption and grief. We travel through the dark of the moon whenever we are immersed in the closure phase of a relationship, job, belief system, family, specific identity, responsiblities, living environment, or addiction; and whenever we face the loss of that form which has given our life structure and identity.”

Though the dark moon phase can be symbolically felt at any time, I want to invite you to join me when this energy is most potent at the end of each monthly lunar cycle for a guided Death Meditation. The meditation itself was written based on my experience with mediumship development meditations and my readings on Buddhist death awareness meditation practices. In this space, we will enter into loving communion with death in hopes of demystifying the dying process, becoming more comfortable with closing out the cycles of our lives both major and seemingly minor, and holding/being held by our grief in all of its forms.

The next Death Meditation will be held virtually on Friday, November 29th at 5:30pm EST, and you can sign up here.

I will be hosting these monthly, so if you can’t make it this month, fear not- this will be reoccurring, and there will be plenty of other opportunities to participate.

Thanks for reading, and sending you light through this dark quarter of the year.

Seven